


Siren Among The Rocks

by PlexFlexico



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Astrophysics, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Disdain for CEOs, Domesticity, F/M, Fluff, Mututal Respect, Occasional Science, White Collar Crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24782302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlexFlexico/pseuds/PlexFlexico
Summary: My world was turned upside down, or perhaps inside out. It's hard to tell the direction, really.Everything was falling apart, and then I met my gunslinger and his strange, small son.This is the story of impossibilities and probabilities and how I came to be where I am now.A terrible computer accident has caused me to lose a few chapters. I'm getting them re-written, since I have a ton of it after that done and still have all my paper notes. Please bear with me!
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin / OC, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Original Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

I’ve got credits enough, I suppose, to never worry about anything again. **  
**

If I can keep them bouncing around the inner-rim systems long enough for the accountants to get bored and then sloppy, that is. I was ahead of them by a good 30 transactions and gaining, with no expectation of losing my advantage. I had time to think.

Everyone was very happy, at first. The trouble started later on, after they finally had time to sit with the goods for a bit. Everything crystallized for them in a disaster of financial instability and bad PR. 

The data they were desperate to hand over a system’s worth of credits for was completely, absurdly useless to them in any practical sense. 

I had been on the run for close to three weeks before they realized they were supposed to be chasing me. I was B’rer Rabbit in the brier patch except I didn’t stick around to wait for the fox to catch me and toss me in.

The cockpit door of the Razor Crest slid open, breaking into my thoughts. 

“Where is he?” The sound of the modulated voice was a welcome distraction from the silence. It was done, then, and the next handful of hours could be spent in the relative safety of hyperspace. 

“Sleeping. I fed him, he cooed, we bonded over a drink, I took him to the vacc, and then I put him to bed,” I yawned, stretching my arms above my head and nodding towards the tiny pod.

A curt nod followed by his shoulders straightening was all the signal I needed to begin making reservations for fuel, supplies, and docking at the next destination. I could feel his visor turn to me briefly as I reached into the inner pocket of my jacket where I kept my book. He was forever fascinated with my method of record keeping and the “unbreakable code” contained in its pages. 

Flipping through and quickly doing some calculations I found where the credits were now, where they were headed next, and when they’d be moved. I had a large enough window that I could take a bigger chunk than initially planned for, split it, and plan some circuitous transfers with enough time to account for a delay in exchanging the funds so the bulk would be arriving just as we did. I sent my instructions out into the ether and sat back as I quickly made notes about how I’d routed the remainder.

“You have a talent for thievery.” There’s approval enough in the statement that it’s obviously not an insult. While more-or-less ethically on the straight and narrow he’s not one to pass up the chance to give the shreds of the Empire a black eye. 

“They gave it to me freely and with thanks. There was never any theft. This is just a bit of minor money laundering as they work through their buyer’s remorse.” I quip, detecting a small snort of laughter from my laconic employee.

The departure goes smoothly enough. Not long after the ship has lifted into the black he’s busy making preparations for the main portion of the journey. Then the magic happens and I am drawn in to the view.

He does not understand how I can stare into it the way I do. Some go mad from it, he tells me. He may think I _am_ mad with the way the tension starts to drain from me as we slip outside normal space and the shadows and light of such an alien place streak by. I empty my thoughts of the day to day clutter. Slow my breathing, let my heart calm, and the anxiety slips away. We are, for the moment, virtually untouchable and I no longer have to see the stars. For the moment.

I know he’s still curious. Who wouldn’t be if they were hired by a person who doesn’t exist for help in hiding from a group that was not, at that point, aware that it should be looking for her? I knew he’d already used his contacts to try to pin me down before he took the job and they had found precisely nothing. I think his own need to pick apart the mystery coupled with his desire to see what else I’d do to the Remnant were the only reasons he even agreed. And the money. 

Oh, the _money_.

***

As insurance against overestimating my overall advantage I had given him more credits than he’d seen from every job he’d done in the last cycle and told him that if he could find a trace of me before a cycle ago I’d triple it. He’d scoffed that with those funds he could find a single nanovirus in the galactic core. 

I hadn’t changed my identity. I hadn’t been erased from the systems. Instead, I had never appeared in a single one of them. Ever. Not even for a moment. I had no known genetic ties, but was most definitely human. One day I was not, and the next I was. 

I still gave him the prize, and it took him some time to come to the realization of why I’d pay for such a spectacular failure on his part. I needed to be sure of my position and he could respect the hell out of my going about it in the most expedient way possible. 

It was also pure flattery. I think he knew that, too. 

After that it was easy enough for him to piece together what I had been up to in the cycle or so before I crossed his path. None of it was exemplary behavior by anyone’s standards, to be sure, but none of it caused anyone but the Empire to come to harm. If you can call what happened there ‘harm’. 

I figured he could live with that well enough, and the flow of regular resources appeared to ease any itch that might prompt him to probe further. 

Standing, I stretch, cramped from a long day stuck in a chair trying to work out what the hell I’m going to do once I have somewhere I can stop long enough to breathe while also doing my best to entertain his small, strange foster son. 

The Child. I always thought of it that way. The Child. The reverence with which those words were often spoken had conferred upon them the significance of a noble title in my mind and I couldn’t shake it.

Now there’s a real mystery. A tiny little thing that I could swear was genetically engineered to cause immediate emotionally and intellectually catastrophic oxytocin release in any human within seeing or hearing distance and also capable of taking you out with squint and a flick of its tiny claws. Not as impossible as I was, I suppose, but impossible enough. 

“I need to sleep. Wake me when we’re halfway there. We can have four days, but it would work better if this was done in two.”

“Got it,” came the curt reply.

Not needing to fill the spaces between my words with useless pratter has been the highlight of this partnership. Galactic Basic was easy enough to get the hang of by design, but my accent is atrocious and I didn’t relish struggling for words I hadn’t had time to master.

Exiting the cockpit and heading down the ladder to the sleeping cubby I’m stifling another yawn. Folding myself in, I shut off the light as I hear the distant whisper of the blast shields closing above me, blocking out the strangely comforting and hypnotic light.

***

**EARTH - 2420:**

Hyperspace is so new and so dangerous that the redundancies have redundancies built into the backups of the backup systems. 

No large shipments. One man pods, stocked to the brim and each capable of sustaining the “pilot” for a decade in the middle of nothingness without needing to dip into the precious cargo it carried.

The observatory being built on the other side of the giant pinwheel of the Milky Way was vast. An interferometer array larger than the solar system and designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before. The next stage in the project was to begin to “calibrate” the individual observatories, making sure they were properly aligned. 

To achieve this massive feat they‘re going to use the data from the GAIA 3 mission (launched in 2392 and now in its 28th year), and the Hubble 4 Deepest Field Project to ensure the most precise positioning possible in advance of the long term hyperspace communications positioning process which would come many years later. 

As it had been for as long as anyone could remember, it was generally easier to just send a hard copy of the data from the source to the destination. Hyperspace communication, like hyperspace travel, was expensive and that was a mind-bendingly _huge_ amount of bandwidth they’d need to clog up for a long period. Easier to send it out with the resupply/maintenance missions when you’re shipping out new staff. 

The central problem they faced in building this facility was that they needed a group of people who would be singularly devoted to the task. Yes, recreation was encouraged, even subtly mandated, but romantic partnerships were forbidden and strong relationships aside from loyalty to the group and the goal were discouraged.

There had been an incident. A jealous lover. 175 people and 18 asteroids worth of resources gone in a heartbeat. Another incident where a station split into factions over a friendship ending and it took 3 months to quell the resulting uprising. 

Now they look for people who don’t require, or desire, that deep of a connection. The screenings are rigorous and thorough “…but the pay is astronomical,“ as the corny joke goes.

They lost a lot of missions. Wreckage would be found so smashed and twisted that it was obvious no escape plan would be helpful. 

They decided to send them one by one. Each in their own pod. Losses still occurred, but the cost was greatly reduced. It took decades to fully staff the stations, but once that was done the resupply and maintenance missions held to the same standards. Singularity of purpose, a strong work ethic, and a natural tendency to introversion and solitude was the key to keeping everyone focused. 

So here I am, having passed the psych tests and physical tests, ready to throw myself into another dimension so I could slingshot across the galaxy in the name of a whole pile of money and a new puzzle to solve. 

Sitting aboard the pod I run through the last of the checks. I’m already out of orbit, heading to the vast ocean of emptiness between the Earth and Mars. 

I’m holding my breath. I force myself to exhale. This is no time for second thoughts. 

The robotic voice continues its countdown and check acknowledgements.

I’m ready. I’m ready. 

I swear I can feel time itself pause for just a moment. A half-heartbeat. Then the universe slams behind me and I’m rocketing through the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. 

A light goes red. Another. Another. 

Faster than I can think.

Everything is red. 

I can see a shadow. 

“Oh, my god — it’s so big and I am so, so small. Oh god, oh g— ”

A wrenching, not of myself or my craft, but of space and time. 

Blackness. 

***

I’m surprised I’ve stayed sane. I have no idea where I am. There is nothing I have that can help me place myself in space or time. 

( _Are you so sure about that, though? Think._ )

I was found near a privately owned planet. My pod was a curiosity, as nothing like it had been seen before. They towed it in and found me inside. 

Details are sparse. It’s hard to interview someone when you don’t speak the language. Barely speak the language. I’ve been here for two months and so far I’ve managed to gather at least this much.

I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand how I can go about understanding. 

( _Yes, you do. You’ve been in a blind panic for so long you forgot how to be sensible._ )

My hosts are generous, but I had no intentions of abusing that generosity and goodwill. While I had no currency to start, I did have curiosities galore. I was part of a resupply mission for a space station housing 650 regular employees and had everything from the mundane to the sublime. When you’re willing to travel across the galaxy through a rip in space you tend to get spoiled.

Unknown foods. ‘Exotic’ drugs. Clothing. Fabric. Spices. Chemicals. Tea. Coffee. Seeds. Plants. 

I was generous, but carefully so. I traded, I sold. My hosts were more than happy to provide security as first the goods, then the credits, flowed. 

I felt unmoored. Few questions were asked. I had no answers anyway, and they thought I was either a refugee from an unknown outer rim planet or a black market dealer from the inner rim who had successfully disappeared.

The truth is not nearly as exciting.

I’m an accountant. 

***

Not a “do your taxes” kind. The kind you hire when you think someone is skimming or embezzling in order to find all the ways your reliance on software and machines and the sweat of a hundred thousand people who see a crumb of what you collect in a day has made you vulnerable. I was heading out to the station on the resupply to check out some odd behaviour in a bit of budgetary software. Not the most exciting job I’d taken on, but oh, the view!

My job wasn’t glamorous. It was methodical, slow, and repetitive. Scanning the noise and trying to decide what counted as an anomaly and then chasing it down to see what it really was filled my days. Hours spent arranging, rearranging, indexing and cross indexing data endlessly until everything aligned and the pattern popped out. 

Sometimes it was nothing more than an odd quirk of code, and everything could be restored back to order. Sometimes, though, people were the culprits and that’s when the chase started. That’s when the hunt was on. 

Years spent tracing financial shenanigans for worried Boards of Directors gives you a unique perspective into the human heart. My clients mostly had their wealth off the backs of others, exploitive, disdainful and petty. Though I didn’t feel much sympathy at all for them, I did sometimes feel sympathy for my quarry. A handful were desperate people who could not see another way out. 

While I never eased up, I had many sleepless nights. 

Some were more clever than others. I didn’t find everyone, and I almost welcomed the puzzle of “the ones that got away”. Now and then a new technique or a new way of looking at things would cross my path and I’d revisit where I’d made my mistakes. Improving. Trying to guess a step ahead for next time. Always coming up with a plan for the inevitable brick wall in the system.

Nothing I had ever seen or done prepared me for what happened when I dropped out of the universe and ended up here.

If only I knew where that was.


	2. Siren Among The Rocks

There are many people here. So many species. 

At first I had assumed that out of all the beings around me I was the only human, but with so many differences between everyone I saw I just assumed I wasn’t a curiosity because no one else was, either. 

Then I saw another human. 

I fainted. 

Slightly dramatic, yes, but in my defense it had been a tough week and this was, despite the absolute strangeness of everything, the strangest thing I could have seen.

I came to with a start and stood up from where I slumped against a wall. I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of my own blood. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. 

I made my way back to my pod at the dockyard, not seeing where I was going. Just going. 

Sitting inside in the dark I forced myself to slow my breathing. No use passing out again. Panicking isn’t going to get anything done. I need to plan. 

There are humans here. 

( _Maybe humans. Maybe_.)

If there are humans here I am either close to home or there is something far stranger going on. 

( _It’s not heaven. You know it’s not another dimension. You know the answer to this but you have to stop running away from how big this is long enough to think._ )

My instruments work, but are useless. I’ve tried so many times. I can’t get my bearings. Everything just zeros out. Nothing is familiar. None of the stars I can see appear anywhere in my nav data.

( _ **Why** can’t you see the answer? Stop trying to hide from it. Stop running from it. You have the answer. You have everything you need. Stop **looking** and **observe** where you are right now._)

My nav data was not the only astronomical data I had. 

I couldn’t believe I had been so sloppy. Couldn’t see the forest for the trees. 

I had petabytes of nav data I hadn’t even considered. Nav data that picked apart the minutiae of a hundred billion galaxies and galactic clusters and structures even larger than that. I could use that coupled with the observational and navigation instruments on my pod to get a rough idea where I was. 

I slam on the lights and scrambled for the manifest. 

I set about finding and unpacking equipment and pulling up manuals.

I had a plan. 

***

When I had first arrived I began to note what I started to call ‘Universal Truths’. 

Physics worked the same. 

Chemistry, too. 

Algebra and geometry? Check. I’ll admit it seems silly, checking to see if geometry was still true. Thinking about it now I feel foolish but at the time it made sense. Because nothing made sense. Who was to say this place wasn’t even more ‘elsewhere’ than I first suspected? All I could think was to test the fundamentals, like whether or not a triangle’s angles added up to 180 degrees and whether or not pi was still irrational and starting with ‘3.1415926’. I could still bisect an angle with a compass and straightedge and trisecting an angle still didn’t work except in the special cases I already knew of. 

So the rules still apply, and it was unlikely I had dropped into another universe. Too much was the same for it to be somewhere else. 

I lost some of my anxiety about disintegrating without warning or suddenly finding myself turned inside out from accidentally wandering into the fourth dimension. 

I started to venture out more.

Walking through town, out to the edges of the settlement, there was much to see. At night I’d watch ‘holos’ on a borrowed data pad. Families, children, schools and communities. Cities. Farms.

“It’s— it’s so much like—” I whispered to myself, unable to even finish the thought. I can’t bring myself to think of how far away I am. 

As the weeks passed and I began to amass credits I also learned that commerce, that good ol’ greasy wheel of commerce, was also the same. Banks. Brokers. Exchanges. Profit.

…and crime. War. Oppression. Slavery. Rape. Class divides. Genocide. Hate. Bigotry. Crusade.

I was alone in my pod, trying to parse a history book holo I’d bought at the market. As I struggle through the text and rely mostly on the images I feel a growing tightness in my chest. 

“Nothing ever changes. Nothing.” I spit out into the silence. 

I threw the datapad across the pod and spent a sleepless night staring at the ceiling, feeling sick. 

***

There was still so much to get used to. 

Everyone here wears armor and carries weapons. Everyone. Blasters on every hip, knives, shock weapons, swords, and a thousand other things. It was the wild west with lasers and robots and modern banking. 

I wasn’t without arms of my own. All pods had a weapons locker, containing a taser and power packs, darts and an air pistol to fire them, two handguns and a military-issue rifle. I had also taken my own rifle, as there was a range at the station and I was anxious not to lose my skills while I was away from Earth. 

The kind of guns I had were called 'slug throwers’ here and I had been told a story by a shopkeeper’s very serious clerk one day that they were used to defeat some sort of sorcerer that could deflect blasters with their swords, but not bullets. 

Given everything I’d seen so far I simply accepted that it was true, or legend, or lie and it didn’t matter which it was. 

Everything around me was strange. Familiar enough to a point, yes. I could breathe the air and the food was edible and people were kind, but the ongoing, endless culture shock numbed me. 

***

I sighed and pulled myself from my thoughts and back to the problem at hand. I needed a switch. A big switch. A router. 

How in the hell do I get a goddamn router … wherever the hell this is? … that can route packets in a language that is totally unknown? To equipment that has never been seen before? 

Sure it’s zeros and ones and binary is easy enough to explain. The issue is not with the information itself. That’s just a lot of numbers in an easily understandable arrangement. The problem is in how it’s stored. How the devices themselves organize, label and break up that information. Totally alien. 

( ** _You should have taken them up on the droid._** )

( _I am not going to allow a robot that can think that **well** near me. It’s creepy the way they anthropomorphize those goddamn machines. I spent my life’s work seeing if the problem was a person messing around or a machine that has, for lack of a better term, gone bug-fuck insane. They’re very good at that and they do it a lot. I’ve seen enough to know people always make the same mistakes and this reliance on robots is one of them._)

Back to the manuals. Back to the manifest. 

I force myself to leave the pod for at least a short while every day. Cables are everywhere. I’ve uncoupled the racks in the cargo bay and re-bolted them to the center of the space, centered under the hatch to the main cabin, minimizing the distance and so maximizing the supply of cabling. The computer is sitting in the center of what living room I was afforded and I had to place a sheet of alumi-plast against the side so I could squeeze by to my bunk, the only sitting space aside from the pilot’s console.

24 racks of drives, each drive containing over a petabyte of astronomical data from a pool gathered for over a century, allowing me access to search the raw data of a perfect 360 degree view, in incredibly minute detail, of the universe from the perspective of home. I just needed them all going at once. Somehow.

I crimped connectors and spliced fibre optic cable until I thought I would go blind, counted endless filaments and cursed a blue streak for each bubble or slight misalignment. Labels, cable ties, colour coding the cables and making endless notes so I wouldn’t get lost. I needed control and order. I needed to keep busy.

I _needed_ to get out for a bit. 

I’d been sitting here for hours and I was cramped and cabin-feverish. As I exit the ship the security droids greet me politely. No matter how often I see them I’m still terrified of these monstrously autonomous things. Still, something in me always restrains the urge to recoil and I do my best to give a ‘hello’. 

I had been here for five months. I’d never get used to this place, but I was learning to adapt. 

There was a basic language, unsurprising in a galactic commerce with multiple interacting bureaucracies, races, and species. It could be learned the way any immigrant learns when they have no roots in their new nation: Point. Point again. Look questioningly. I keep doing that until a merchant hands me a box one day and shows me how it works. It’s a children’s toy. A baby’s toy. You select a picture and the modulated voice says what it is. I probably paid a bit too much for that, I reflect, but I was overjoyed.

Today he has fruit he’s pressed on me before, which I rather like, so I buy some and a basket to carry it back. He asks me if I have anymore of the “Shishu Pupkehn” and I know he’s trying to say “szechuan peppercorns”. He’s anxious to trade.

I tell him I’ll have to check, I’m not sure, and I’ll come back tomorrow. He smiles.

I have 18 kilos of it. I’m no fool. 

“Come midday. We will have tea.” He smiles at me like a kind uncle. With facial tentacles. 

The combination of a jovial uncle offering afternoon tea and face tentacles makes the counter tilt a bit sideways for a moment. I inhale, and force myself to calm. The world rights itself again.

I start to wander around the stalls. Poking at this and that. Idling in the sun.

( _You are **procrastinating** , not taking in the sights. You’re afraid that if this doesn’t work you’re going to be worse off than you are now. How could you be? You have money. You’re not helpless. You have shelter. Just get it done._)

The whirring as everything boots up is phenomenal. I have the cargo bay’s emergency exhaust turned up as far as I dare. It was designed to create a full vacuum in the space when the hatch was sealed, if necessary, and I’d removed the safety mechanisms so I could run them with the cargo access hatch and the cabin doors opened. The drives and equipment were all designed to run as cool as possible, but that much of it all at once in such a confined space still produced a lot of heat. 

Making computers look for patterns inside other computers and chew bubblegum what what I was best at and I had yet to see anything resembling Hubba-Bubba anywhere around here. 

Either this is going to work or I’m going to have to start all over again.

Once everything had booted up and the indexes came online and had confirmed the data drives the noise abated. I turned down the fans. 

I set up my search, using the observations that had automatically been made when my pod came to a halt. I set it to start searching for any large objects that could be similar based on mass estimates and spectroscopy, and requested that for each object that met the loose match criteria it calculate the distance based on my pod’s gathered nav data.

Physics had held up so far, and if I can find enough matches I can figure out where I am. Maybe.

( _…and then what?…_ )

I sit down to wait.

My software and hardware zipped through the drives. It was finding matches.

I couldn’t look. Not yet. Too much room for false positives and I am already on edge. I eat mechanically. Make some tea. Putter. Unable to sit still and having barely 40 square feet to fidget in.

After a few hours I was a quarter of the way through. Nothing was coming unglued and the drives weren’t overheating. I could shut the bay doors now and prepare to go to tea.

A shower and a change of clothes leaves me feeling presentable, but I haven’t been sleeping and I don’t feel refreshed.

“Good afternoon!” He beams his uncle-y beam at me. 

“Trey’k. Good afternoon.”

He ushers me to the table set up towards the rear of the shop. We sit. I offer him a generous half kilo of the spice but before negotiations can begin, tea is served. His clerk is obsequious, fussy, and makes lovely tea. It tastes vaguely of the way dried sweetgrass smells in the sun. 

Trye’k sits across from me, waits for me to name a price. 

I do, giving him room to bargain with me but not so high as to insult the generosity he’s already shown me. We’re playing his favourite game and I can’t help but indulge to take my mind off what I’m waiting for. 

Business done, I head back. I have to restrain myself from breaking into a jog. I need to know. 

( _…and then what?…_ )

When I return to the dockyard I walk past the droids silently and into my pod.

About a third of the way there. I’m so tired I can’t see straight, but I have no idea how I’m going to fall asleep. 

I squeeze past and flop into my bunk. I stare at the ceiling and try not to hope. It will be what it is and nothing in this entire universe or any other will change that. 

Exhaustion finally wins and I sink into sleep. 

Hours later I wake and blink at the glow of the computer. Something’s wrong. What’s wrong? I sit up, desperate to clear my head from the lingering dreams of home. 

It’s quiet. I can hear the fans but the only sound coming from the racks are the drives idling. 

It’s done. 

( _Am I awake? I can’t be awake._ )

This isn’t right. This can’t be right. There are no matches for stars. There’s nothing at all “close by”. Nothing in the local galactic group. There is nothing at all “far away”. Every single match is in a sheet that sits about 13.3 billion light years from my current position. Large, smeary sections of the CMB and the primordial structures of the universe are lit up with matches like fireflies dancing on the surface of a pond that’s impossibly far away. 

( _Oh, no. No. There has to be something… This could be some weird glitch in your process. Re-evaluate. Run it again._ )

I know in my bones I don’t need to run it again. It makes perfect sense. Light takes time to travel from one place to another. I, however, did not. The data is going to agree in the middle because that’s where both sides are seeing the same time in space. 

( _Run it again, then. Try to break the pattern._ )

I’m numb, and too numb to know it. Since I don’t have to sift all the data again and I have my matches I create a new drive and a new index and run off that. I run it again, tightening the restrictions. 

My breathing is harsh. I’m shaking uncontrollably. It’s still there. 

( _Run it again._ )

( ** _Who’s the coward now?_** )

My inward conversation is interrupted by someone approaching. They’re stopped by the droids. It’s a human. A man. He’s wearing a neat, dark suit. His hair is precise. His manners are precise. Every movement screams ‘secret police’. 

( _Nothing ever changes. Nothing._ )

The droids escort him towards my ship and I walk out to meet him before he can get too close. I haven’t spoken to another human being since I arrived.

The Empire has come to call. 

***

My hosts were, as I said, gracious and generous. The hints that I should share the source of my fantastic stock were gentle and infrequent, and when rebuffed they accepted my gifts of apology with murmured apologies of their own for prying. They valued privacy and security themselves, even though they thought I took solitude and circumspection far too seriously.

I knew the fantastic luck I had was going to run out when more and more attention was turned my way. As kind as they were I didn’t think they were looking to have a guest, even a generous one, disrupt the peace with her presence. 

***

My visitor introduced himself as Lieutenant Dekar Amavia. He was polite, but firm. As if he expected my agreement and cooperation. As if he could merely assume shared values and it would be so. 

It was most certainly not so.

He wanted to know where I was from. He wanted to know where I had found the ship. He wanted to know if I was planning to stay. Who my people were. 

All of it was conversational, under the pretext of offering me an invitation to a function, to introduce me to more people in the local area. I can tell by the way he offers this he means ‘better than the common rabble’. 

I barely control the urge to raise an eyebrow and keep looking at him steadily. 

I tell him nothing. I refuse his offer. Politely. Humbly. 

I know how this works. First they come to your door with polite questions and then later they show up in the night with black bags and bullets.

( _Nothing ever changes. Nothing._ )

His demeanor changes. He’s not playing anymore. 

“We know.” He’s smug. Arrogant. “We know you arrived here through hyperspace, but there are no safe hyperspace lanes where you arrived. Not before, and not after. We’re not the only ones who know. We can offer you protection.”

“In exchange for what? Nothing is free.” I keep as neutral as possible. 

“We would like you to help us with the navigation information and logs from your ship.”

( _They want to know how I did it. They want to know because they want to use this. They colonize. Terrorize. They’re interested in how I managed to simply drop out of nowhere. To drop a bomb unseen and without warning. The only advantage I have is that they are completely unsure who I am so they need to tread carefully._ )

I had caught the subtle threat earlier. That others would be coming. That they might do the same unless I agreed to their ‘generous offer of protection’. 

I smile as calmly as I can. “I am very tired. I need to sleep. I will seriously consider your kind offer. Goodnight, Dekar.”

I can see his irritation at my use of his first name instead of his rank in the second before I turn around, walk inside, shut the hatch and lock it.


	3. Siren Among The Rocks

The following days brought more curiosity. More questions. My hosts were growing impatient, but gently so. I need to go. 

I need a plan. 

I need to hide. In order to hide I need money. I need help. 

I go to see Trey’k, my shopping basket heavy on my arm, trying not to glance behind me. 

“All of it?” He stares at 15 half-kilo packages of every “exotic” ingredient I knew he had been selling for an incredible profit. 

“Yes.”

Even now, in his shock, he orders the tea from his clerk and settles into silence until it arrives. 

“I am in trouble.” I begin, picking up my cup. “I have done nothing wrong and I’ve hurt no one, but I need to hide.”

“I was aware of your company.” He inhales the steam, sips. “I can find you a smuggler who can help.” He’s relaxed now. In a galaxy that has been torn apart by factions and war practically forever, this is familiar territory.

“Not quite, Trey’k. I need someone who can help me hide, not ferry me around.”

“I don’t understand.” 

I decided that if I was going to confide anything in anyone it should probably be the only friend I’ve got. I explain what it was I did before I arrived. That when you were looking to find holes in the security, cracks in the wall, you looked for someone who knew all the ways there were to wriggle through the cracks because they hunted the ones who did it… and caught them.

“I know who you need to speak to. You will need credits. Many, many credits. More than I think you have now.” He frowns slightly. 

“I believe I have the solution to that, as well.” 

As we talk the tea cools and the shadows sweep across the room. 

***

I make preparations, selling off goods and paying my hosts well for the additional security they provided until my departure. I was due to leave in three weeks. 

The day came that Trey’k handed me a datapad and promised to keep watch over my pod. He walked with me across the market to where I would meet my speeder-taxi, and before we parted he handed me the package he had been carrying. 

A packed lunch. My heart twisted with homesickness at the simple gesture and the affection for a friend I would soon part from. His uncle-smile came through uncle-tears and his tentacles got a bit drippy. 

I will never get used to this place.

***

I’m on what amounts to a cargo ship and I have a small bunk room to myself. Trey’k understood my need to be alone and unbothered and had made excellent arrangements. Expensive arrangements. 

I was on my way to find myself the best bounty hunter for the job.

The planet I arrive on has a name that’s unpronounceable. I’m in a daze. Without my pod I feel lost. It’s my last piece of home and now-- 

I collected myself. No sense in dwelling on it now. A crew member arrives and I’m led out of the ship and down a quietly dusty street to a cantina. My outward calm is the result of shock. I’m beyond afraid. I can plan, but those plans are reliant on my own guesses and the acuity of someone I had known for a few months, who was born 26 billion light years away from where I first breathed the air. 

No one looks up as we enter. At a booth in back a man who looks exactly like the kind of man I’m looking for glances up at me. This must be Greef Karga. He nods to the crew member who had brought me here and my escort heads to the bar, but doesn’t leave. 

I sit. I’ve been told to hand him the datapad immediately. I do, and he takes his time. 

I hear a trundling sound of treads coming closer and stiffen. Karga waves the serving droid away as soon as it begins its approach. I am too tense to cover my sigh of relief at the robot’s swift departure. 

“You don’t like ‘em?” He looks amused. Before I can answer he goes back to his reading. 

He looks up after a few minutes. Eyes narrowed. 

“I had one in mind, for you. A good one, too, but there’s something that makes me think you’re better off with the Mandalorian.” says Greef in a tone that infers I should understand how grand this is.

I sigh. 

“Is that a droid? I can’t do this with a droid. No.” My disgust is evident. My stomach sinks. 

( _All over. It’s over. They can’t help me without me taking on a mechanical monster and I can’t. I can't. I’m on edge enough._ )

Something about what I’ve said has amused the Guild agent enough to cause him to throw back his head, laughing. 

“I don’t get the joke.” I’m tired and I feel like if I were alone I might even burst into tears. 

Karga looks at me and sighs. If he were home and at a bar on Earth he’d say ‘Kids these days!’. Instead, he explains. The Creed. The ‘helmet thing’. How they live. What they believe. What kind of man this Bounty Hunter really is. He looks at me to gauge my reaction.

He seems disappointed, somehow. 

Internally I’m thinking of all the people I have been lost from on the other side of the universe. The ones who held themselves apart, physically. Who marked themselves as different from those not of their faith, but equal to all within it. Who held to the ideals of family and community as being the only way forward through the vast ocean of time. Who raised great warriors. Fearsome fighters. Who took in those who needed their care and loved them as their own.

It was a framework I could understand. I would be safer with this Mandalorian than I would with anyone else. 

“That is exactly the kind of man I’m looking for.” 

He named a price. 

“Before we strike a deal, Karga, I have something else. You know why I want to hire a bounty hunter but I also need you, and your expertise.”

I hand him the second datapad. I wait. I feel like I could scream. 

He named a new price and we hammered out an agreement. 

( _ **You’re about to do the dumbest, most amazingly foolish thing you’ve ever done. You’re being reckless. You kept your head down your whole life and now you want to go kick a hornets’ nest because you’re feeling suicidally homesick and irrationally angry because that Imperial was rude.**_ )

( _I am NOT suicidal. I just don’t have anything to lose. I’m no one. From nowhere. Why can’t they just leave people alone?_ )

( _ **You’re letting a petty irritation over a visit from some space gestapo get to you.**_ )

( _I am refusing to cooperate. For once in my damn life I won’t be a cog in a system I hate. I have nothing to lose except the shame of being complicit._ )

I need money and I have the means to get it. I need to hide, and since they won’t expect it I’ll be ahead of them from the start. The hardest ones to catch are the ones who have started running and covering their tracks before you even know you really need to be looking for them. 

I return to the most familiar thing I have here. Trey’k welcomes me back and fills me with fruit and tea and little sweets, as anxious as I am for what’s to come. 

***

While I wait to see if the offer is accepted I begin to dismantle my project. Idly, as I wind cables and unplug gear, I have a sobering thought: 

( _What if they find out how to reverse it. What if they figure out how to get there before I do? What if they get there at all? We’re not ready. We can’t defend against this. So far we seem to be alone in our galaxy. Life there is scarce, either because we’re not far enough along yet or because that’s just how it worked out. We’re not ready._ )

Oh. Oh, no. Ohnonono. What have I done? 

***

At first I thought there was a droid at my door. Then I noticed this droid was breathing.

A voice issues from this cowboy knight out of a sci-fi fairy tale. It’s modulated, but it’s definitely the voice of a man. 

“Greef sends his regards.” 

I step off the ship and sit on one of the crates of goods I’ve sold that’s awaiting pick-up. I need to travel light, and I need money. I’m getting rid of almost everything that is not going to be absolutely useful. I’ll keep enough that I can gradually wean myself off the sounds, tastes and scents of home, and enough that I can trade in a pinch if I need fast cash.

He’s a well built man under all that metal. Lean and muscled, not overgrown or cumbersome. He moves gracefully enough, loose and easy. I can’t read his face, but that’s never been a problem for me. I was used to never seeing the faces of the people I was working with. This was not much different. 

“There’s something we need to get out of the way first, making this easier for us both,” I begin.

I gesture to the crate a few feet away and he sits. He inclines his head towards me. 

“I understand you will never remove your armor in the presence of others. I respect your Creed and your way of life. Many of my own ways have similarities. We’ll need to share close quarters for the next while, so I’d like you to understand that I’ll offer you as much privacy as you require and in return I only ask that you do the same for me.” 

“Agreed.” 

( _A man of few words. He really is a space cowboy._ )

I outline for him what I need to do before we go. He’s not fidgeting as much as there is a subtle stress that creeps in as we talk. I decide to excuse myself, saying I have so much to do and very little time. He has the air of a man who needs to be somewhere else.

There’s relief in his posture when he stands. We arrange to meet tomorrow to begin loading my gear on his ship.

***

In the morning I’m hauling crates out of my cargo bay as the droids watch over me. 

The Mandalorian arrives at the front gate to the dockyard as I’m coming outside at our arranged time. At first I think he has a bundle of cloth in his arms. As he comes through the second gate I see that he’s cradling something else. My eyes finally adjust fully from being down in the cargo bay and I see very, very large ears with eyes to match framing a wrinkled forehead and the teeniest button nose.

Not a pet. People don’t hold pets that way. A baby. 

So that’s what had him on edge. 

“I guess Karga didn’t tell you everything, then.” I can hear a note of worry. 

He doesn’t know I don’t have a choice but to go forward with this. I’ve pinned all my hopes on him and if I don’t do this I’ve lost everything. 

The baby coos and pats the arm cradling him, then looks up at me and smiles. 

“Let’s get to work. Have you got a crib for your little one?” 

***

This child is enchanting. Captivating. Adorable. In serious need of a bath and a huge fan of attention. 

The hunter seemed almost abashed as he explained this was a foundling when I pointed out that the little silver ball and the charm were both likely choking hazards. Then he told me about the frogs. 

When we part ways in the afternoon I stop by to see Trey’k. His eyes and ears about town have relayed the news and he chuckles heartily when he hears what I’m interested in. He has most of what I’m looking for and sends his clerk out to fetch the rest in the market, telling me I must sit and have tea.

“What is the use of you searching when he knows just where to go? Sit with me.” 

I’m giving Trey’k the stripped out pod to hide for me and the last of the goods I can’t carry for himself. He hands me pouch of fabric. Inside is something solid and heavy. 

Unwrapping it, I find four small bars of metal, like Damascus steel. 

“You can bribe your hunter with this if you need to. Beskar. Mandalorian Iron. It’s what they use for their most prized armor. Very expensive. Very hard to come by. Keep it secret and keep it safe.” 

***

Later that evening I went to the Razor Crest, Trey’k’s clerk leading the transport droid with my own possessions, the crate of drives, the last of the electronics I might need wherever I end up, and the purchases I had made this afternoon. Four security droids were with us. Front, rear and sides. I was jumpy, feeling paranoid and unwell. I just wanted to get there and get rid of this weird metal parade guard.

He was waiting for me, and I catch him stiffen when he glances at the droids. I wonder if he’s feeling a bruised ego because I have this honour guard with me. If only he knew how much I’d have preferred to make this walk alone, but my hosts and Trey’k has insisted. 

I pulled my boxes off the carrier, bid Trey’k’s clerk a good night and then watched them leave the slip, melting into the dim of the dockyard. My shot nerves finally started to ease. 

“You don’t like them much, do you? The droids.” he said from the gangway. 

“Nope. Can’t stand the things. I don’t trust them.” 

I waited for his inevitable laughter and teasing. 

“I think we’re going to get along fine,” he said quietly. 

Now this is interesting, isn’t it? 

***

The last of my gear is stowed in between bouts of digging a little mischief-maker out of this corner or that one or away from this crate or that. I recognized boredom when I saw it.

I got up from where I had been kneeling at a pulled up section of decking and replaced the flooring. 

“Done. It’s done.” I say. I sound resigned. 

“You forgot a crate.” the modulated voice called out from outside the ship. 

“Ah, that. Yes. Well. That’s not my crate.” 

He immediately becomes alert. The change is subtle, but I can begin to see the differences between the man and the hunter. 

“Relax. I brought it. It’s a gift for you and the little one. It’s some things I picked up to make things a bit more comfortable. It’s a tradition where-- at home-- we give gifts to our hosts.” 

“Thank you.”

He hauls the crate inside and calls the toddler over. 

A small wooden tub that was no more than a shallow bucket, cloths, gentle soap. Some small robes and soft blankets. Little leather slippers. 

Each was patted and cooed at and poked and babbled to. The little figure toddles over to me and plonks himself down to see what else was in the box so full of soft and sweet smelling things that no one was trying to pull out of his grip. 

I had saved the best for last. 

Toys and some picture books. Some little figures of animals and a soft, squishy cuddly thing that looked like a rhino crossed with a buffalo on an overdose of steroids. 

As soon as it was out of the box there was excited babble, wide eyes and grasping hands. The hunter looked over from where he had been checking weapons and saw what his charge had. 

“A mudhorn. Hmm. He’s going to like that one a lot. It’s our clan’s sigil.” You’d think that a voice filtered through a helmet like that wouldn’t retain the emotions of the speaker. 

Pride. Love. Uncertainty.

I can’t make sense of most of the things that happen around me. Everywhere I look I see things I can barely comprehend, but then there is so much that is so familiar even though it’s all so--

I can feel the breath leave me. I’m struggling to keep control of myself as my mind suddenly decides that now is the best possible time to try to comprehend just how far I am from home. I start to shake but a triumphant giggle slams me back into the here-and-now, unlocking my chest. I suck in air. 

The mudhorn has been vanquished and the mighty hunter raises his arms while he sits on his prey and trills his little war cry. I managed to make a suitable fuss over his bravery and strength and he seemed very pleased with himself. 

If his father had seen my moment of panic he gave no indication.

***

Checks and preparations made we settle in to take off. I busy myself amusing the little one to avoid thinking about where we’re headed. What I’m about to do. 

When we’re on course for what he calls our ‘jump point’ he sets the autopilot and goes to the little galley to make us some food. He sat with us, feeding his son, and going over the basics of life on board the Razor Crest. When the child was done eating the Mandalorian took his dinner and went up to the cockpit to eat in privacy while I tackled giving a wriggly little creature a much needed bath. 

I heated some water in the small boiler and mixed it with cold. Added some soap to make bubbles and I had no trouble at all getting him to allow me to undress him and get him in the tub. 

Fascinated by the bubbles, shaping them with his little three fingered hands, he made no fuss as I quickly washed and rinsed him. He didn’t want to leave, but when you’re 11 inches tall, don’t speak the language, and have no money? Well, you have to go with the flow. 

By the time the hunter was done with his dinner the foundling was dressed and once again playing games with his stuffed friend, a clean and happy child, but the reappearance of his parent was the highlight of the hour. 

Mudhorn forgotten he made his way over and looked up, tiny hands on his father’s leg. He was picked up and cradled with such care. The Mandalorian was certainly new at this but what he lacked in experience he made up for in absolute adoration. 

***

Later on when the child was in his pod and we were sitting in the cockpit, he asked me if I had children of my own. 

“No. It wasn’t something I could do.”

“You’re very good with him.” A hint of approval and something else, maybe jealousy? 

“I believe that every child deserves to be treated with love and respect. It’s up to all of us to nurture them when we’re in their lives, protect them. They’re children, but one day they’ll be adults and we need them to understand what it is to be kind.”

Silence. 

A panel glows. We’re good to go. 

I have no idea where I’m going in any practical sense. The first step is to keep me out of the way and keep me hard to find while Greef makes arrangements. All I know is that I’m about to go back into hyperspace and even though I thought I’d be breaking down I want to go back. I want to... 

I realize I’m holding my breath. 

( _Get control of yourself. Falling apart won’t help. Wishing for things won’t help. Just put one foot in front of the other and push on._ )

We slip outside the universe and the strangeness of hyperspace surrounds us.


	4. Siren Among The Rocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fixed the formatting! Sorry about that!

Life on board the Razor Crest was filled with routine and long stretches with little or nothing to do. I spent my early days getting better at Basic, watching what passed for news broadcasts nervously looking for any clue that my story was getting out, and waiting to see if Greef would be successful in starting a bidding war for my data. **  
**

Initially I had thought of simply selling them all the astronomical data. Why not? I’d already copied the data twice so it wouldn’t matter if I sold one. What good could it do them, after all? It would take them some time to figure out how to process it, and while they did that I could tear apart my pod’s massive store of log files looking for the answers about how I got here. I had enough manuals and emulators and diagnostic programs built into the little ship’s ‘brain’ that I should at least be able to figure out what happened. If I could find out what happened maybe I could find someone here who could help me get home. 

Like I said before, I was numb. Numb, terrified, paranoid, and enduring constant, total culture shock. I wasn’t thinking of anything but how to get by until I could get home, and even then I wasn’t thinking anything through. Panic coloured every move I made, every thought, every moment. 

I was dreaming of home constantly, waking in silent tears because everything and everyone I loved was so far away from me. 

Unfathomably far. 

Even if I sent a message, with the strongest signal possible, it would never reach. The distance I had traveled meant that the steady and inexorable expansion of the universe had carried them out of my sight for eternity as we now sped apart faster than the speed of light. Not even hyperspace travel or communication would allow me to get there. By the time any signal arrived at its destination I’d be long dead and so would anyone who might remember me. 

I was more alone than I had imagined anyone could be and when I allowed myself to take the full weight of that it felt like I was dying. I was seconds away from a full blown panic attack from the time I arrived— until the moment I slipped into hyperspace again. 

The hundreds of hours of training anyone going to the stations underwent had one message underpinning everything you prepared for. Somehow that repetitive communication bubbled up from my subconscious, draining every last bit of the terrible tension I had been feeling. 

_‘There is no way for anyone to rescue you in hyperspace. Until you drop out and back into normal space you’re inaccessible, outside of this dimension. If you get into trouble you must drop out, or we will never find you…’_

Here, in the strange light ‘between’ I was beyond the reach of anyone or anything. I didn’t have to see the strange constellations, stars in unfamiliar arrangements that mocked my disconnection. I didn’t have to fear who was coming next or looking over my shoulder. 

Here, in hyperspace, I was safe. Disconnected, but by my own choosing and not at the blind whim of some freak twist of fate, or space, or— something else. The time spent there was time spent where the background noise of panic was finally quiet enough to let me think clearly. 

Just before the Mandalorian had showed up at my ship I had come to the realization that if they got their hands on both my astronomical data and my ships nav computer and logs I’d be giving them a map straight back to Earth, such as it was, and this was now the thought I concentrated on the most.

There was no reason to believe they could get there with their current technology, given how stagnant it seemed to be. The pace of invention in this place was incredibly slow. Impossibly slow to my mind, but who’s to say there isn’t some roadblock preventing better technology that I’m just unaware of? I’m an accountant and a computer specialist, not a chemist or a physicist. I have no specialized knowledge of those fields that wasn’t readily available to any other regular citizen. 

However. 

If they knew? If there was a faction or a government that decided they wanted to try? The access to manpower and resources in this galaxy far outstripped anything I could have imagined possible. They didn’t quite fit the definition of a Kardashev Type III civilization, but they were close enough to it that the minor quibbles didn’t matter. If clone armies of millions could be created without anyone batting an eye? If more than one giant, planet-sized destroyer could be built in secret? What is there, then, to stop them from directing that energy to finding Earth? 

No, I had to find a way to keep the logs and the computers out of their hands until I could figure out how to use them myself. I couldn’t be responsible for unleashing that kind of chaos or giving the goddamn fascists what might turn out to be an unstoppable weapon and troop delivery system to use in their own galaxy. 

_(Nothing ever changes. Even all the way across the universe, people are just as cruel and dangerous as they are back home.)_

The computers in the pod were easy enough to remove. Everything was modular, designed to be slipped out and repaired or replaced with ease. I had a few dozen small CPU units, their drives, some additional boards and switches, about a hundred meters of spare cabling, plus the cables I had made for my initial project after arriving. Packed securely in a locked and bolted case, they were stowed well under the decking of the Razor Crest in an unlikely to be found spot in case anyone came onto the ship and started to snoop around. 

I also took the precaution of taking or destroying everything I had that was written or displayed in pictographs. No manuals, books, boxes with instructions— not even a sign indicating ‘EXIT’ was left behind. I was not leaving them any clue about how to decipher any of the information I had. Everything that wasn’t useful was destroyed, burnt to ash, and everything that I thought might have the possibility of being useful was locked in another bolted crate and hidden under the deck of the lowest section of the ship. 

I can only hope I’ve thought of enough ways to stymie any attempts at understanding anything about what I’d left behind or what I was looking to sell. I had upped the stakes considerably since my initial meeting with Greef, but had no intention of letting anyone in on what I now planned to do. No sense in involving anyone in my insane scheme more than was required. 

Since they had no way of knowing who I was and I had told no one where I had come from, who I was, or how little I knew about the details of my appearance any eventual buyer for the data has no real reason to suspect I’m holding anything back. 

It would be reasonable for anyone here to assume, given the sheer amount of stuff I had, that I was nothing more than a smuggler or a courier, and in a bad jam, looking to sell everything I had of value.

It’s also reasonable to assume that no one would bat and eye at the use of a broker or intermediary. It was as common a thing here as it was back home, and for all the same reasons. When you need to negotiate you hire a negotiator to do the difficult bits for you. When you need to find buyers for rare or specialized items you hire a broker who deals in those specific things, as they’ll already know who might have an interest. 

I have had an incredible amount of luck so far. 

I find that very disturbing because I don’t believe in _luck_. 

***

Our first stop is on a lightly populated world orbiting an unremarkable star in a back-water section of the outer-rim. My employee has a bounty to collect and I’m now unofficially part of the team, acting as ship security and baby-sitter. 

“I should be back before tomorrow morning. Don’t let anyone on the ship and don’t let the kid out of your sight,” he instructs gruffly. As much as he’s playing the tough guy I can tell he’s nervous.

“Understood. Is there a way to reach you if—” I stop because I don’t really want to finish that thought. 

“The com panel— hit the orange toggle and it will let you send a message to me. Don’t use it unless you have to.” He’s taking a last look around and fussing over the child in his arms. 

“I, uh— I’ll have a meal waiting for you when you get back.” I don’t know what else to say. This isn’t exactly a ‘have a great day at work’ kind of moment but I feel as though I should say something. 

“You don’t need to go to any trouble.” He sounds as uncomfortable and as out of his depth as I’m feeling. 

“It’s the least I can do,” I reply breezily. “It’ll give me something to occupy myself instead of sitting around thinking too much.” 

“Thank you.” He hands me the child and turns to go, but hesitates at the door, his back to us. “Really. I mean it. Thank you. I’ve had to leave him alone and— this is better.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he’s gone. 

The little one looks up at me and gives a questioning coo, his tiny forehead wrinkled in concern and one three-fingered hand reaching for the closing hatch. 

“Dad’s gone to work, little one. He’s going to catch a bad guy and then he’ll be back. We’ll wait here and play together while he’s gone, okay?” I don’t know how much he understands, but it seems he gets the gist of it when his face relaxes and he looks at me with curiosity. 

“I wish you could speak. Your dad says you’re fifty years old, which seems a bit impossible, but who am I to judge, eh?” 

The baby perks up his ears and laughs. 

“Do you like it when people talk to you?” 

A wet raspberry and a grin. 

“I see, I see. So what’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?” 

The little one babbles away with great seriousness and waves his arms about as if giving emphasis to his ‘words’. 

“That is quite the adventure. I’m glad you found your dad, though. This whole trip would be a lot less adorable without you around.” I bounce him a bit in my arms as he trills out a laugh. “Should we get your toys out and have some fun before dinner time? You can help me cook for us and then we’ll tidy and maybe some stories before your bedtime?” 

The enthusiastic pats on my chest and happy sounds spilling out of him give me pause. This child understands a great deal of what I’m saying to him and it is plain that he is absolutely starved for normal parental affection. What the hell happened to him before Mando found him? He hasn’t told me much, but I can guess. The little one was in the hands of the people I’m now running from and they weren’t exactly interested in finding him a good school and getting him into Boy Scouts. Even his time with Mando has been full of danger, fear, and being left alone. It must have been awful. 

“Well, cutie-pie, what should we do first? Play with your blurrgs and your mudhorn? Read some books together? Draw some pictures? Ah, let’s just pull out your toy box and see where the mood takes us, eh?” 

***

The hours pass quickly enough, playing, reading, and watching some documentary holos about wildlife throughout the many systems in the galaxy. The child watched those with some interest, seeming to recognize some of the animals and their various calls, but ultimately he ignored the holo when he crawled into my lap and discovered that I was as fond of cuddles as he was. 

It reminded me of all the times I had held my friends’ children and my own nieces and nephews, and suddenly all the cradle songs from my childhood came flooding back— 

_“Hush little baby, don’t say a word,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird._

_And if that mocking bird won’t sing,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring._

_And if that diamond ring turns brass,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a looking glass._

_And if that looking glass gets broke,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a billy goat._

_And if that billy goat won’t pull,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a cart and bull._

_And if that cart and bull turn over,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover._

_And if that dog named Rover won’t bark,_

_Papa’s gonna buy you a horse and cart._

_And if that horse and cart fall down,_

_You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.”_

As I sang I rocked him softly, holding him close with his ear next to my heart. The child relaxed fully, but as soon as the song stopped he was looking up at me with those big, bright blinking eyes and no words were needed to understand that he wanted more. 

So we sat, and I rocked and sang, and the baby sucked on his little pendant and buried his face into my chest, humming contentedly. My heart broke a bit, thinking of how rare this kind of simple love must have been all these years. 

After a time, and a few more lullabies, he fell asleep. Instead of putting him down I fetched a large scarf and tied it into a baby sling of sorts, settled the child and went to make us all some supper. 

Mando had advised that the baby’s species was most certainly carnivorous (and his sharp little teeth were most definitely evidence of that) and so meat was on the menu. Mando had been surviving on ration bars for the most part, but with the money I had from selling off goods we had purchased some supplies and filled the small chiller. It was high time for them both to have a decent meal for a change. 

I went through the meager offerings in the kitchen storage and found, to my delight, a large collection of what seemed to be powerfully flavoured spices and many savoury herbs. Mando had made a few meals already, and I was well aware he enjoyed food with a bit of heat, which suited me just fine.

For the baby I spiced things a bit more subtly, and along with a kind of flatbread, some vegetables that seemed a lot like the kind of ‘pot-greens’ I had grown back home, and something not unlike a potato I had a full and hopefully nutritious meal prepared. The colour of the butter they used here still gave me a touch of nausea now and then when I looked at it, its blue shade appearing odd, off maybe, to someone like me who was unaccustomed to any food being naturally blue. 

Well, blue or not, the stuff is delicious and I had eaten things far stranger before I came to this place. The milk, though, I simply could not tolerate. It was so rich it was like drinking cream and I found it would upset my stomach if I tried to consume it raw. 

The child, though, couldn’t get enough of the stuff. I supposed that was for the best. It was evidently very nutritious, and contained a lot of calcium. If the child ate amphibians, crustaceans and other crawling things bones-and-all it wouldn’t surprise you if his species required a lot of calcium in their diets. Since no bones were coming out the little one’s back end when you took him to the vacc tube, and since his cute little belly wasn’t distended from a surfeit of bones in his system, it stood to reason he was digesting them. 

Sighing, I turn away from the path these questions will lead me down and settle at the small table, the baby still strapped to me and sleeping peacefully. 

**_(Why is biology so similar? Why are there even creatures here that have bones? Why does your DNA have the same chemical bases as the humans and a lot of other creatures? It makes no sense. There’s been a lot of life on earth arranged by random chance and evolutionary pressures, so how in the hell does that happen twice in places that likely haven’t been causally connected for the last 12 or 13 billion years?)_ **

_(Shut up, shut UP, SHUT UP. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s a question without an answer, so just SHUT UP. I have better things to think about right now. More important things.)_

**_(Now you’re yelling at yourself in your own head. You’re cracking up, sweetheart.)_ **

Shaking my head to clear it I see the child is awake and looking up at me. His gaze is steady, oddly penetrating. Like he heard me. Like he’s considering me in a way no child ever could. 

Then he blinks and coos, his little tummy rumbles and the feeling of being seen is gone. The baby’s attention has turned to the plate containing his dinner, so I lift him out of the sling and onto the table to begin our meal. 

***

After dinner there was bath time, and then pajama time, and then story time. Since I didn’t know any stories in basic I told him stories in English, ones that I remembered my mother telling me. Old, old stories about witches and enchanted forests and brave children who succeeded in saving themselves against all the odds. 

I think it comforts me just as much as it does him, the rhythm of the telling being the key, and not the words themselves. 

Settling him in his little pod in the cockpit I slump into the seat and stare at nothing, trying to empty my mind and drift so that maybe I can catch some sleep before Mando comes back, but sleep is elusive. 

So I wait, and I think, and I wait and think some more. A plan is beginning to crystalize, but this kind of thing will need more than just cursory consideration. 

I hope Karga can get his end of things going, and soon. I’m anxious to get this behind me and get on with—

_(With what, exactly?)_

Well, I’m anxious to get this behind me, and I think for now I’ll leave it at that.


End file.
